You Woke the Morning Up
by paper-rose16
Summary: “It’s okay,” Aldo says. “You’re safe now. He’s not going to hurt you anymore.” He keeps a tight hold on Michael’s hand as he leads him away. “Come on. Come with me and don’t look back.” What if Michael went with Aldo that day on Pershing Avenue?


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Prison Break, _The Gunslinger_, or the title of this fic. Just this crazy idea that took entirely too long to write.

* * *

**You Woke the Morning Up**

"_When all is lost, all is left to gain."  
- _Mat Kearney,_ Won't Back Down

* * *

_

The closet is dark and safe compared to the outside world; a refuge contained within four solid walls. Usually he hates it in here – it's the place where everything unwanted and left behind is hid away, where pain and regrets meet, and monsters are made. Michael is eleven years old when he stays with the man on Pershing Avenue, but he's smart enough to know that it shouldn't be this way.

Today, however, it is safe.

He can hear shouts on the other side of the door, a tumble that sounds like a rockslide down a mountain, crashing and cursing. The sounds don't bother him too much anymore; his new foster father is a bad drunk, and this is nothing that he hasn't heard a hundred times before.

There's pounding, a muffled "oomph," and then a strange gargling noise. And all of a sudden he is truly terrified, because this is a new sound and he has the unexplainable feeling that out there something is for once, going awfully, horribly right.

* * *

The boy looks so fragile, and Aldo can feel his heart fracturing a little more with each passing second. Ice blue eyes identical to his own look up at him, narrowed and untrusting, and then an unshaven man with a sloping belly, the man who is supposed to be taking care of the boy, roughly pushes him back and the contact is lost. Six months. Half of a year. He will never forgive himself.

"What do you want?" the man growls.

His eyes drift over the man's shoulder to where the boy is leaning anxiously against the wall, his skinny arms crossed protectively over a too thin chest. Aldo can see ribs protruding from beneath his baggy T-shirt. "I'm here about Michael Scofield."

Robert Bradley pauses, scowls, and then throws a poisonous glare towards his young charge. "What's he done now?"

"That's not –"

"I said: what's he done now?" Bradley repeats impatiently. "You're from the school, aren't ya? He been in trouble again? Thrown a fit, picked a fight? I told ya guys before that I'm not responsible for it! Not for any of it!"

"I'm not from the school," he replies sharply, and he rests a hand on the bulge of his jacket where his gun sits. He has the pleasure of watching the vile man's eyes widen in fear, and the distinct displeasure of seeing Michael's do the same.

"Hang on then." He slams the door shut and when he opens it again, Michael is gone. "You're not a cop," he says, but the simple statement lacks any hint of his former swagger.

"You're right. I'm not." He pushes his way into the house, hand still on the gun.

It's not the first time he's taken a life, not by a long shot, but it is the first time that he feels completely justified in the act. In the end, he can't even use the gun; a man like that does not deserve such civility. When the job is done, he quickly bundles up the body and stows it in a back room; there is nothing that he can do about the blood currently pooling on the carpet.

Now, he just has to find Michael.

He listens in the stillness of the house. There's a soft scraping sound coming from down the hall; a cry of frustration. Aldo heads towards it; stops in front of what appears to be a closet. He turns the doorknob slowly and pulls it open. Michael is in there, sprawled on the concrete floor. He's gripping a rusty brown nail in one small fist.

The boy looks up at him with wide, startled eyes and Aldo holds out his hand. He doesn't regret what he's done, and he can't allow himself to regret what he's doing. "It's okay," he says in his most comforting tone. "You're safe now. He's not going to hurt you anymore." He keeps a tight hold on Michael's hand as he leads him away. "Come on. Come with me and don't look back."

And he doesn't.

* * *

Michael doesn't say anything as Aldo turns the black nondescript SUV into the driveway of the safe house. In fact, the boy hasn't said a word for the entire two hour trip out of Illinois. He instead stares listlessly out of the window from the passenger seat into the clear morning light, watching the trees leap past like dancers in a silent ballet.

The house is a small two-story bungalow hidden deep within the dense foliage of the forest. Made of red brick and large bay windows, sparsely furnished, it does not look like the headquarters of a secret anti-government organization. It looks like a suburban home, although it's definitely not that. And it's certainly not what he'd envisioned a lifetime ago as a newlywed with his wife, laying on a dirty mattress on the floor of their apartment because they couldn't afford a bed, their minds wide open with the joy and choices and chances before them. But, he thinks, this also isn't Chicago, he's not the father-type, and Michael is no longer the innocent child that can take any place and think of it as home. They are not what they seem; and a choice really isn't a choice if it's made by fate.

"We're here," he announces for lack of anything better to say. When he is met by only silence, he turns off the engine, walks around the front of the car, and opens Michael's door. "Come on, I'm sure you're very tired."

Michael's face is covered in bruises, patches of colour that bloom across his skin in varying shades of yellow and blue. A fading pink scar mars his upper lip from where it has been recently split open. The only thing that makes the sight worse is that Michael seems completely indifferent to it all. Wordlessly, he trails Aldo into the house.

Two of his associates await them in the kitchen when they enter. They stare pointedly at Aldo as he and Michael stand in the doorway, but manage to give Michael a pair of stiff smiles as he watches them silently.

"Everything go all right, then?"

He nods to the men. "Cal, Roger," he introduces, "this is Michael Scofield. Michael, these are two good friends of mine, Caleb Morgan and Roger Sellick." He gestures to each in turn.

Roger inclines his head and smiles a bit wider, but Caleb, always the bolder of the two, leaps forward and goes to mess up Michael's hair. The boy flinches, cowers behind Aldo, and Caleb jumps back, shocked.

"Hey!" he exclaims. "I didn't mean anything by it! Just wanted to welcome you into the family and all, Kid, I didn't think –"

Roger smirks. "It is hard to think with only half a brain."

"Ah, stuff it, Sellick," he answers. Then he turns to Aldo, contrite. "I really didn't mean to frighten him, Boss. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he dismisses tiredly. "It's been a rough day. I'm going show him to the spare bedroom, let him rest."

He offers his hand to Michael, who takes it willingly, but is now keeping a fair distance between himself, and Roger and Caleb. He walks closely beside Aldo, not completely trusting of him, as he should be, but he seems to realize just what Aldo has taken him away from and that is good enough for now. Aldo wonders what Christina has told their son about him – if she told him anything at all. Michael would probably be scared of him, too, if he ever found out the truth.

* * *

The house looks like something out of a James Bond film. The bedroom that the man took him to – the one whose name he still hasn't been told – is small and simple, with a single bed, one window, and a wooden desk with a chair in the corner. It's the only thing that is simple here, though, that much is obvious.

Linc always said that Michael saw far too much than was healthy for him; but who wouldn't see the thin gray wires tracing along the edges of the baseboard, the little cameras stationed in precisely ninety-three percent of the ceiling corners, the glass windows and doors that are four-fifths of an inch thicker than any window or door he has seen before? The house itself looks like it was plunked right out of a cosy suburban street, only to be put back down in the middle of a movie set.

The men downstairs must think he doesn't notice how high-tech the few computers he has seen are. That everything is clean and impersonal, ready to be gone at a moment's notice. And that they all look over their shoulders constantly even though they are the only people here.

"You shouldn't have brought him here," somebody is saying downstairs – Roger, Michael thinks. The voices are tinny and angry. They drift up like echoes through the vent from the kitchen below.

"I know. I know that," answers the man who'd taken him. "But I couldn't just leave him, either. He had him locked in a closet, for God's sake! What was I supposed to do?"

"There were other options."

"You can't think this life will actually be better for him?" Caleb, of course, the one who'd tried to touch him; his voice is a bit more cheerful, less restrained than the other two.

"There wasn't a _good_ option anymore."

"But bringing him into this mess, Aldo? You know firsthand how unpredictable it can be!" Roger yells.

There's a shushing noise, and then Aldo – where has he heard that name before? – says, "You brought Jane into it when her parents were killed, raised her like your own, like I did with –"

"And I left when it became necessary, also just like you! But this is different, Aldo! You know that it's different! He can't stay here." He pauses. "Look, I sympathize, I really do ..."

"It could be worse, Roger," Caleb suggests. "We'll just take more precautions."

"Finally one of you is seeing sense," Aldo mutters. There's the stomping of footsteps, then cupboard doors slamming. "I won't discuss this anymore. He's staying, and that's that."

The voices quiet and Michael sinks warily down upon the bed, which is plush and soft and a far cry from the slim mattress he's become accustomed to. He wishes that Lincoln were here with him. His brother would have understood why these men have brought him here; why they all act like spies, or criminals. Linc would have known what to do.

* * *

Aldo enters the room with a timid knock half an hour later to find Michael standing with his back to him in his socked feet, staring at the closed closet door. It's something that, in a few weeks time, will become a disturbingly familiar sight inside the safe house.

Michael? May I come in?"

The boy shrugs, nods his head. He doesn't look at Aldo; doesn't look at anything besides that damn closet door. He seats himself in the desk chair so that he can watch his son watch it.

"I think ... I owe you an explanation now, Michael."

Michael finally turns, shifts his gaze. There is an unreadable expression on his pale face, one of somebody who is waiting for the bad news that he's come to expect all of his life.

"I – I don't know how to tell you this," he says. He keeps his eyes on his hands, clasped together in front of him. He can't look at the boy anymore; can't stand to see the look of betrayal that will surely come.

"How do you know my name?"

It surprises him greatly: he has never heard his son speak before. Other fathers take that for granted; they couldn't imagine spending the entirety of their son's life not even knowing the sound of his voice. He looks up, finds those eyes that are so exactly his own, and knows that he really has no choice. He has to tell him.

"Because I'm your father," he answers warily. He shuts his eyes as Michael steps back away from him; shakes his head once, twice. He looks like he wants to run, and how can he blame him? "My name is Aldo Burrows, and I'm your dad."

Silence again.

"I don't have a father."

Aldo stands, reaches out to him, but Michael only retreats further away. "Michael –"

"No, you're lying. I don't have a father."

"Son, everyone has a –"

"You're lying!"

"Son, just listen to me for a minute, now –"

"I'm not your son!" he cries. "Stop saying that!" He flings himself upon the bed and turns away from Aldo, back towards the closet. "I want Linc," he sobs. "Just leave me alone. I want my brother. I want Linc."

Aldo sighs and starts to leave. He's halfway out the door before Michael speaks again, his voice trembling through his tears. "What happened to Mr Bradley?"

In hindsight, it isn't the smartest thing to tell him; but in the heat of the moment, it seems inconsequential compared to some of the other things that he could.

"Let's just say that he won't be hurting anybody else anytime soon. I made sure of it."

His son looks sick at the thought.

* * *

He should have known it wouldn't be so easy. Nothing ever was.

He only wanted to get away from this place. The men here are liars and murderers, and he doesn't understand why they have kept him here. Why would they pretend to be something that they're not? Why would they want him? He doesn't know them.

But he knows that he has to get out of here, which is why he had feigned tiredness long before it was even dark outside. Waving off their meagre bid for dinner, he had hid himself away in the bedroom for the rest of the day. Then, in the middle of the night when the three men were sleeping, he had crept downstairs, wincing with each creaking stair and jumping at every shadow. And with all of the other advanced technology he'd seen around the house, he really should have expected a more complicated security feature than a plain old lock and key.

No. Nothing is ever that simple for Michael Scofield.

There is no key for the front door. There isn't even a keyhole; just a smooth brass doorknob and a small black box on the wall beside it. Its green light blinks mockingly at him as he stands in the foyer, staring at it dumbly.

He wonders if he can override it. It's electrical, some kind of card-activated system for opening the door, he's sure. There must be a keypad, or a circuit board that he can turn off. But he doesn't see one; and Michael is beginning to suspect that his window for escape is all ready closing fast.

"Looking for this?"

He turns guiltily at the unexpected voice and comes face to face with Aldo, who is showcasing an amused-looking smirk. He's leaning against the post on the bottom step of the staircase, holding up a rectangular white card that is obviously to be used in conjunction with the black box stationed on the wall.

"You won't get out without it."

Under his breath, Michael swears. He really should have known.

* * *

"Looking for this?"

Michael whips around, eyes wide like he's a deer caught in the headlights of oncoming traffic, and Aldo nearly laughs aloud at the sight. He restrains himself at the last minute, although he can't quite keep the corner of his mouth from twitching a tiny bit.

"You won't get out without it," he says, and watches on amusedly as his son mumbles heated words too quiet for him to hear. This whole day he's looked so frail, like a gentle gust of wind could knock him over flat, that Aldo is just overjoyed to see a small bit of fire within his young son.

His smile falters, however, when Michael whispers painfully, "Let me go."

He sighs and sits down on the bottom step. He'd been naive, he thinks, believing that just saving Michael would wash away all of his previous sins. What if what he's doing now by trying to keep him here is really the sin? "Is this about what I said before? Because I am ... You're dad, I mean. I am."

Michael shrugs, shuffles his feet on the hardwood floor, his eyes downcast. "Mom showed me pictures. But I think she was lying."

"Why?"

"Because you don't _look_ like an abusive drunk." He blushes at his own admission. "And she said that you were."

_Oh._

"She told you that?" he asks quietly. The words are sticky and leave a sour taste on his tongue. "That I ... that I'd hurt her ... and Lincoln? I never –" He crosses the short distance between them and bends down so he and Michael are on the same level. "– Trust me, Michael, I never did that; I wasn't an alcoholic. I'm not. Please say you believe me."

"Then why did you leave?" Michael says. He has tears like crystals adorning his cheeks, and Aldo wants so badly right now to pull him to him tightly and never let go. But he can't, he gave that up. "Did we do something wrong?"

"No! No, of course not! Son, I left to protect you, and your mom and your brother, okay? There are people out there, bad people who would do anything to get to me, who'd stop at nothing ... I couldn't risk them hurting any of you to get what they want."

Michael wipes his nose on his sleeve. Aldo touches his arm, slowly, and this time he doesn't move away.

"Why would they want to hurt you?"

"Because ... because sometimes, people just lose their way and they get drawn into things that they never thought they'd get drawn into. There's no real explanation for it, but it happens. And lately ... well, I've realized just how great the consequences can be." Aldo tries to transfer all of the reassurance he can over to Michael; to convey that he wasn't the only Burrows male left affected by his choices.

"Will you stay here with me, at least for a little while? I won't stop you if you really want to leave ... but I want you to stay; family should stick together, right? I don't want you to go, Michael."

Michael looks at him for a long time, and then nods. There are so many things in this world that Aldo is sure of, and he'd thought that leaving was one of them. But in less than a day, Michael has torn down all of his walls and all of his reasons; and Aldo couldn't be happier for it. He smiles, and the boy manages a tentative one in return. "Okay," he says, standing so he can follow Michael back up the stairs. "Okay."

* * *

He's staring at the closet again.

He can't explain exactly why he's so fascinated by it. It's almost like he is drawn towards it. Like he's a positive charge trying to argue against his dipole opposite, a losing battle in such close proximity. He can feel the way in which it tugs consistently at his gut, saying:

_It's safe inside_, and

_You don't have to see how filthy you are when you're alone in the dark_, and

_He'll get to you. He'll find you and put you in there again, and your dad won't bother to save you this time._

He can't get these voices out of his head. These conflicting angels and demons on his shoulder – telling him to go in, not to go in, go in. They can't seem to agree on whether the closet is to be trusted or avoided; and it's ripping him to shreds.

Michael realizes that the others have noticed these periods; entire slots of time where he can do nothing other than to lose himself in the pull. He doesn't much care because they can't know, none of them. They have never had to decide between helplessness and pride; hurt and the darkness, where coincidentally the hurt can be lurking, waiting anyways, in any or every corner.

It's not like there's much else in the house, either, to distract himself with. His dad is busy. He doesn't think he trusts Cal or Roger, not yet, although they try to include him in things occasionally now. He wanders day after day. Inevitably, he finds himself drifting, sifting endlessly through the overlapped layers of the unknown, in the hope that some day he'll see clear.

* * *

Michael wakes up with the dawn. The covers are wrapped like a mother's caress around him, and he wonders when it was he began to think of them as his. He doesn't really want to get up, but he can hear the early morning stirrings of the adults moving about in the rooms below him, and he smells the dim perfume of a cooked breakfast that is too delicious to pass up.

He tiptoes downstairs and enters the kitchen. He doesn't see Aldo, but Cal and Roger are there, reading newspapers and flipping strips of bacon over the old stove. Michael still isn't comfortable around them, so he starts to leave, but before he can take more than a couple of steps back the way he came, Cal lifts his head and spots him.

"Morning, Kid." He smiles widely around a huge mouthful of egg.

"Boss is in his study," Roger states with his back turned. "Bacon?" He offers Michael a plate.

"Thanks," he murmurs.

The food is amazingly good. Lincoln had never cooked for him like this before, those first months after Mom's death when they were still together; anything more than pancakes and a bowl of cereal, and he was doomed. Michael wolfs it down within seconds as he listens to the conversation flowing around him. He doesn't understand any of it, but it just furthers his proof that these are two people that he would never want to get on the wrong side of.

"– Just received word of a Company operator working up in Iowa. Promised we'd check it out –"

"Did you hear about the president's new campaign? Real hard ass; doesn't know what he's getting himself into –"

"We should get an early start tomorrow if we don't want to be late to the meeting point."

They don't pay any attention to Michael as he stands and leaves the kitchen. Their feelings about him staying with them here are as plain as day in their motions and the way they talk around him. He is a burden; an intruder; a sad, lost puppy that they don't know what to do with yet and has nowhere else to go.

It's Aldo he's not so sure of.

By now, he knows his way around the house quite well. He immediately heads toward the study, one of the more luxurious rooms, with books and large, comfortable sofas to sit upon. He doesn't know, nor care, why he's visiting that room when he knows exactly who is in there. Maybe it's his desire for answers, or for a tiny slice of normalcy in a world too sparse of it.

He doesn't bother to knock either; just enters the room at a slow crawl and lets his gaze drift over whatever it can find. Aldo looks up from behind a handsome wooden desk covered in mounds of paperwork and trinkets, where he is reading something intently.

"Michael!" he exclaims sharply. "What are you doing in here?"

He shrugs. It's one of those moments where Michael feels that Aldo knows his thoughts almost as well as he does his own; like they think along the same wavelength, or by telepathy. It's also a crazy thought: Michael doesn't know this man, whose blood he supposedly shares, any more than a fly on a wall.

"Is everything all right?" His dad frowns. "Have you had any breakfast yet?"

"Yeah." He nods.

"Um ... well, that's good." He stands as Michael walks slowly around the room, examining all the different titles on the overloaded bookcases. "Michael, is there something that I can do for you?" he asks carefully.

Michael is just as surprised as Aldo at the question which he finally asks. "You ... like me, don't you?" he mutters. "I mean, I ... well I don't know what I mean, exactly."

"Of course I do!" The man seems appalled at the very thought of the answer being otherwise. "You're my son, I love you."

"Oh, okay." Michael lets his fingers trace the letters of a thin paperback book on a middle shelf, the gold script glinting off the warm glow of the overhead lamp. _The Gunslinger_, by Stephen King. He picks it up, cradling it gently between his hands.

"Ah, one of my favourites," says Aldo brightly. He's come out from behind the desk and taken a seat on one of the leather sofas in the middle of the room. He gestures for Michael to do the same. "Not one of his more popular stories, I'm afraid, but I've always thought it had great potential. I like to think, too, that I see a bit of myself in the protagonist ... perhaps more than I would like at times. Roland Deschain of Gilead: the gun wielding anti-hero." He chuckles. "Have you read it?"

"So that would make me Jake."

His dad smiles wider and his blue eyes shine. "I'll take that as a yes." He relaxes in his seat; arms outstretched and his long legs crossed at the ankles.

"It really is too bad that the series is still incomplete," his dad continues. "But I'm not too worried about it. Uncertainty lets your mind drift; gives the reader a chance to make up their own ending for the story before you have to fill in the blanks with the version King had in mind.

"But the thing that I really like the most about that story is that Roland knew the ways in which the world worked and he wasn't afraid of it. He just carried on through every obstacle in his path; kept his goal in mind; and taught Jake to do the same."

"He betrayed Jake," Michael replies coldly. More coldly than Aldo probably deserves. "The boy trusted him, but that didn't matter in the end, not so long as it meant the gunslinger got one step closer to seeing his stupid tower." He stands again and shoves the book roughly back in its place, scowling at it for a long time before retaking his seat.

"That's true," Aldo says, slow and serious now. "But the story's not finished yet. And maybe sometime before that day, Roland will find a way to make amends with Jake. After all, isn't that the joy and the curse of being human?"

They're both silent for what seems like a thousand years and then Aldo whispers, "I can't tell you how glad I am that you're here, Michael. That you ... trust me. Believe me."

"I don't."

"What?"

"I don't trust you," he says, gazing determinedly down at his lap, "at least, not completely, not yet. I ... I just think that maybe ... maybe he deserved it after all." He flinches at his own words; and it feels like a betrayal and redemption all in one. He starts to cry but for once, he doesn't try to hide it. "Mr Bradley was a bad man and I'm glad he's dead." For the first time since he's entered the study, Michael looks Aldo straight in the face. "Does that make me bad too?"

And his dad kneels down before him and grasps Michael's hand in both of his. "No, not at all," he says fiercely. "You're not a bad person, Michael; you're a very good person. Because let me tell you a secret: I'm glad he's dead too."

* * *

Lincoln Burrows had almost forgotten what the morning felt like.

Not literally, of course. In Juvie, you are still allowed to see the daylight, whether through the barred windows of the bunk houses or for that one amazing hour after breakfast in which all the inmates are crowded into the exercise yard, the sun always beating down directly from above to remind you of your insignificance to the world. They let you soak in its brightness and good intentions until your skin peals red and dry, and sweat courses your brow. But inside, the morning is still different. It _smells_ different; just another thing that they take from you when you're theirs'.

Now, standing outside the gates to the place he's called home for nearly seven months, nothing more than a single cardboard box beneath one arm containing all of his worldly possessions, Lincoln fully appreciates what mornings smell like on the other side.

Like mowed lawns and freshly-rolled asphalt. Like blueberry pancakes and Michael. Like new beginnings.

He allows himself to just stand there for a moment, wondering what he should do next. He probably should've asked for them to call him a cab … or something. He closes his eyes, tilts his face towards the sky, and –

"_LINCOLN!_"

His eyes fly open, and he barely has time to drop the box to the ground before a speeding bullet in the form of a boy crashes into him and he's forced to catch him before he falls.

"… Michael?" he gasps.

"It's me, Linc!" the bullet squeals, clinging to him. "Surprise!"

And he just has to pull back, because this is impossible, it isn't real! His baby brother can't be here before him now, of all times; not when Lincoln had only received the news a month ago of Michael's disappearance from his current foster home. The cops had looked – so they said. But they'd found nothing; no clues; no leads other than that body bleeding out on the floor and vague signs of abuse.

One moment his brother had been there, and the next he was just _gone_.

But now he is here, and it doesn't make any sense at all.

"Mike …? I don't – I don't understand. How're … _where've you_ _been_?"

"With Dad," Michael proclaims gleefully. He looks over his shoulder and points to a tall, silver-haired man leaning against a car a short distance away. "See, he came back!" A sudden thought seems to strike Michael and he looks at Lincoln, frowning. "Please Linc, don't be mad – I know you don't like him much. But he's cool, I promise. He _saved_ me." He says this as if it means everything.

"I …"

The man is walking towards them now. Steadily at first, and then more quickly. He holds his hands out before him in what's supposed to be a placating offer, but the only things Lincoln is thinking about is whether to shield his brother, or to smash in this guy's smug face.

"Lincoln … Linc …"

"Get away from me," he snarls. He would recognize those hands, those proud shoulders, anywhere. He memorized them, as they walked out the door.

The eldest Burrows stops in his tracks. Michael pulls on Lincoln's arm and his voice is pleading, but happy. It's a force that Lincoln can't quite step away from.

"Just give Dad a chance, Linc, _please_. I know he left, but he's back now, and besides, he had a really good reason." Michael is practically jumping up and down, and the words are coming from his mouth almost faster than he can say them. "I didn't like him at first either, but he did save me from Mr Bradley. I didn't like Mr Bradley, and I still don't; but I like Dad. We like all of the same books, and we both cheer for the Cubs, and _Mom lied to us_, Linc! Dad was never an alcoholic! Did you know that? It's kinda dangerous to live with him, though … he told me all about his work and this company thing he's trying to take down … and he says he's gonna show me how to use a real gun to protect myself with but I don't think I'll be any good at it. He's going to get custody of me again too – make sure the whole state of Illinois knows I'm his kid – and he says he will for you, as well, if you want …"

Aldo is smiling indulgently at Michael's upturned face. He ruffles Michael's shaggy hair and Lincoln has to restrain himself again from forcefully pulling his brother behind him.

"I know that you're confused," Aldo says softly. "And probably a little upset and surprised thrown into the mix … but I'm not the bad guy, Lincoln. I just want to talk to you. We have a lot to talk about."

Lincoln flinches as Michael unabashedly grabs Aldo's and than his brother's hands, swinging them at his side. He seems blessedly ignorant of the death glare being sent at that very second from oldest son to absent father. Instead, he pulls the both of them towards the car waiting a few paces away.

" … And you can meet Cal, and Roger …"

Lincoln doesn't know who these Cal and Roger people are. He doesn't really know who Aldo is, either. But Lincoln is many things, and blind isn't one of them. He sees how dutifully Michael acts in regards to Aldo; how devoted Aldo seems in return. There is a story there, it seems.

Lincoln grew up hating his father. He spent so much time on that anger, letting it fuel and shape him, making him into who he is today. But this Aldo – he is a mystery; a clean slate. It's that obvious. And all Lincoln can do is give him a chance to explain or, at least, decide if he should get one.

**The End**


End file.
